Folding@home is now more powerful than the world’s top 500 Supercomputers combined

Over the past few months, Folding@home has evolved to become one of the world’s fastest distributed computing networks, so much so that it is now more powerful than the world’s top 500 supercomputers combined. 

In total, Folding@home now generates over 2.4 exaFLOPS of computational performance, which is over 2,400,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second. For context, the world’s strongest supercomputer, the IBM Summit, only offered 200petaFLOPs of performance when running at its peak. 

This success for the Folding@home project comes thanks to the generosity of the PC gaming community, from the many hardware-focused websites who have written articles and started dedicated Folding teams to assist the project to the many gamers who have dedicated their PC’s performance to the cause. As word of Folding@home’s efforts to tackle Coronavirus spread, several major companies have also gotten involved to add their spare computational resources into the mix, from Amazon Web Services (AWS) to VMware and Oracle.  

A special mention must also go to the Linus Tech Tips team, who are currently two of the world’s fastest team with over 97,000 active users. At the time or writing, OC3D’s Redline Folding Team is currently placed 44th in terms of total point generation, and that is with only 78 active Folders. 

Right now, the Folding@home project has both CPU and GPU-based projects which are designed to simulate the properties of COVID-19’s proteins. This will allow researchers to analyse where drugs can potentially interact with the virus and discover new treatments methods that will help increase the survival chances of sufferers. 

Currently, the Folding@Home project is currently working on similar projects to assist research into cancer, Alzheimer’s disease, Huntington’s disease, cystic fibrosis and more. This makes Folding@home a great project to support, even if your computer isn’t working on COVID-19/Coronavirus directly.

Below is a chart which compares the computational performance of Folding@home compares to the world’s top supercomputers.     

How can I help? 

Last month, we released a guide on how to start Folding using Windows-based PCs. Today, COVID-19 projects on Folding@Home are both CPU and GPU-based, allowing PC users to dedicate most of their PC’s performance to fighting the pandemic. 

At this time, you cannot dedicate your PC’s resources specifically to Coronavirus-related projects, but know that all of Folding@home‘s projects are useful for disease research. 

For almost ten years, OC3D has hosted the Redline @ OC3D folding team (team number 98860). Those who are interested in folding should head over to our Folding@home subforum if you want to join the team or discuss folding with our active team members. 

You can join the discussion on Folding@home gaining breaking the 2 exaflops battier on the OC3D Forums.